Making ice not such a cool job

But when the mercury reaches the mid 40s it can become a little hazardous, according to Renmark ice manufacturer Peter Vriends.

"It actually gets quite dangerous to go in and out too many times on a very hot day because the temperature differential can be anywhere up to about 50 or 60 degrees so you've got to be careful," he said.

"You can only spend about five minutes in the freezer otherwise when you come out the temperature difference just hits you too hard.

"It can black you out, you just don't spend too long in the freezer otherwise you do see stars when you come out and tend to pass out, which has happened to me on a couple of occasions but I've learnt pretty well now."

Aside from a few quick trips into the freezer, Peter says most of the time he's working in the heat of the day.

"Most people's impressions are you work in an ice work, it's a nice cool job, but the truth of the matter is you probably spend more time outside in the sun delivering than you do anything else," he said.

Scorching temperatures increase the demand for ice, adding to Peter's already busy workload at this time of year.

"It's a pretty hectic time between now and new year's for everyone's parties," he said.

"There will be a lot of panic buying."

Peter says demand for ice doubles at this time of the year and then goes up another 100 per cent from Boxing Day onwards as the tourists flock to the region.

For the past few months Peter has been making up to 20 thousand tonnes of ice a day to build up supplies which he keeps in cold storage across the region.

He estimates he has about 60,000 bags on hand at the moment and will probably make another 20,000 bags before Christmas Day.

Peter can sell between 3000-3500 bags in a day during the current hot weather, but that pales in significance to the period between Christmas and New Years when up to 7000 bags are sold each day.

"Houseboat hirers are big users of ice but campers and caravan park guests are the biggest customers in this region, also locals on boats and sales at the hotels," he said.

"The records show that one of the best years we ever had was when the pilot strike was on about 20 years ago and no-one could go overseas for a while - we did very well then.

"We do exceptionally well in high waters as well like flood times but drought times aren't all that crash hot for us."